Dialing in from the Great Midwest

I'm in Ohio visiting relatives. Oddly the weather here is as balmy as it is in Philly. Global warming may finally be catching up with us. But it rained like crazy on the drive here yesterday so outside was a little too wet for working out. I'm hopeful to get J's WoW in outdoors during one of my days here. But today I hit up the Courtyard Marriot fitness center for a quick workout.

1.5 mile run at 7:30 pace
10 x side corkscrew with a 30 lbs dumbell
8 minute abs
3 x 10 incline press 25 lbs on the 1st 2 sets, 35 lbs on the 3rd set.
3 x 10 seated press 25 lbs on the 1st 2 sets, 35 lbs on the 3rd set.
10 x side corkscrew with a 40 lbs dumbell.

(215 - estimate)

Cross Training

Went out to KoP last night to play goalie for indoor soccer. Its not the greatest workout compared to actually playing soccer but it did test some of my explosive changing direction. Felt really good on some of the lunging/jumping I had to do. Did not feel great about playing 75% of the game in our end and facing a barrage of shots. We won't talk about final scores. We will talk about the diving layout to stop a cross through the box where I exploded off the bad knee to get it.

And some combination of being sick and eating well has caused some significant weight loss in the last week+. I'm down to 214 and pretty excited about it.

In one of the next couple days I'm doing J's suicide, pushup, squat challenge. Hopefully, eventually I'll be feeling well enough to be outside for 30 minutes to do it.

Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah

Old Fashioned Ass Whooping

Old Fashioned Ass Whooping:

Complete as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:
1 x 140 yard suicide (cones at 8 yds, 14 yds, 20 yds, 28 yds)
10 x push-ups
20 x body-weight squats

Post rounds completed to comments.

"It has never been about how he plays,

but how he chooses to play."

A quote on the radio this morning re: the 65yr-old Keith Richards.
(Please to reference Denis Leary's No Cure for Cancer for a great short bit on Keith and his message for kids.)

How do YOU choose to play?
How do you prepare to play that way?
--
Anyway, been up to no good as usual. That is, top-secret training methods and internalmotivational work. I've discovered a new (to me at least) exercise that I'll call the L-pullup. That is, as you do a pullup, pull your legs up to parallel as you reach the apex. Shockingly, your body will now form an L-shape. Lower+straighten your body. Repeat.

Do them fast, do them slow. They simultaneously recruit more muscles for the exercise and isolate arms to complete the pullup proper.

Rules of Ultisquash

Game is played 3 v 3 in a standard Squash court. Depending on the size of the court you can play 4 v 4. We break it up into 2-1 when we've got womenfolk there. Sometimes you can go 1-2 as well.

Looking at a standard squash court:

The two service squares (labeled as 5) are the goals. Your first point of contact has to be within one of these areas with possession of the disc. All the walls/ceilings are in play. You check the disc in (usually starting at the intersection of line 6 and the line connecting the service squares) and you have to "check" the disc in off the back wall (where the 1, 4, and 7 are). This occurs either by touching the disc to the wall or catching a pass off the wall. You can then score in one of the boxes. After scoring you have to re-check the disc off the back wall. After a turnover you have to re-check the disc off the back wall. Generally more physical play is expected and tolerated. Games are to 7. You will lose track of the score multiple times because the game moves very quickly. Its a great game for working on explosive short cutting (dump cuts) and boxing out/jumping/reading/etc.

First time players definitely play a little slower than seasoned veterans. Eventually the more you play you learn to brace for running into the walls and running into other people and it allows you to play the game faster. Its a lot of fun and a great workout.

Knee is feeling pretty close to 100%

Emerged from a week of being slightly sick and extremely exhausted to go play ultisquash. I noticed tonight that I really don't notice my knee anymore. Occasionally I step slightly awkwardly and I feel a little something but overall I'm just back out there playing again. And I'm getting my explosive strength and jumping back which is exciting. Hopefully next week calms down a bit and then I can also keep working out through the holiday.

Total workout: 2 hours of Ultisquash, 1 series of 3 games in a row with TC, Tous, Schmucker, Ross, Fink, and I that was pretty killer. Last game of the night was to 11 with the same group except you replace Fink with Ricky Chung.

(216)

A Saturday routine

Wake up, slightly hungover/still sleep deprived from the week.

Throw on clothes.

Head to Haveford for Ultisquash.

Had some very excellent games today. Especially the Trey, Tous, TC, Schmucker, Wheels, and myself games. Very heated and many of them going to 8 or 9. Got a great run and won significantly more than I lost. I did lose to a Whelan blade right to the forehead which opened a nice little 1/4" gash above my left eye. Took a sub but I would return because I'm a hockey player.

Total workout: 2 hours of Ultisquash.

(218)

been working

since Ultimax.

Haven't kept track though.

One thing worth bringing up is the new medball pushup variety:

Do plyo pushups on the medball, but when you bring your hands up off of the ground, pull the ball up to your chest before you throw it down at the ground again. Increase the difficulty by increasing the complexity of hte shape you're attempting to draw with the contact points between the medball and ground. Try back-and-forth over a line, or in a triangle, or in a square or a star or whatever.

Been doing the squats/hillsprints/medball slams+throws/pullups and the like intermittently. Everyday stretching. Lapsing into broken English. Balance work and the like. Squat-jumps. Whathaveyou.

Nike got it wrong.

4 questions that I wish more people would ask themselves at least once in a while (on the field and just in general):

1. What did I just do?
2. Why did I just do it?
3. Should I do the same thing next time?
4. Why (not)?

If you're going to "do it" do yourself a favor and work to "do it" right. Don't "just do it." That's not good enough. Didn't your daddy ever 'splain to you about things worth doin'?

Putting the knee through its paces

I was thinking today that my knee really hasn't been bothering me very much. So I decided to see just how hard I could push it with a pretty massive tabata set. I wanted to do something substantial for a workout but I really didn't have the time.

Feel free to see if you can best my numbers (I'm willing to bet you can't):

Squats: 26 - 26 - 24 - 24- 25 - 25 - 26 - 26 (202)
Box jumps on a brick wall 22" high: 10 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 10 - 12 (82)
Sumo squats: 25 - 25 - 27 - 28 - 27 - 29 - 30 - 30 (221)
Calf raises: 33 - 30 - 26 - 26 - 29 - 28 - 28 - 31 (231)

Total number: 736

Then I threw in 50 diamond push-ups with the diamond at my head.

25 minutes later we have TBF

(218)

Ultimax

4-0 on Saturday.
Lost in Semis on Sunday.

"I thought she was your sister, not your mom...
"Barfight!"

Good weekend. Nice wind on Sunday. I got back to playing D-handler. This might be the role I'm meant to play.

Well, except for Sunday when I played "upwind handler."

Ate lots of Bojangles.
Fuck ya.

(170)

J's WoW: 400 Circuit

400 Circuit:

10 rounds for time of:
10 x mahlers
10 x push-ups
10 x burpees
10 x sumo squats
Post time to comments.

The quietest Monday in a long time

For some reason work was completely dead today. It allowed me to get out for a really decent workout and not feel like I was slacking off on the job. I'll still probably end up here til 7 or 8pm though. Either way, lunchtime workout:

1 mile warm up in 7:30.

Active stretching

3 x 10 dips

3 x 10 x each side cable wood chop pull downs. Weights increased from 70 - 80 - 90 lbs for each set. Each set of 10 includes a pull down on each side. I feel like I could have expressed this in many less words. I also really love this exercise.

3 x 10 pulldowns @ 130lbs. I figure I need to work on my ability to do pull ups

3 x 15 Russian twists with a 10 lbs plate. These hurt.

10 minutes on a bike for 3 miles avg speed 17.5 mph.

I'm still working on the nutrition post. Should be up this week.

Ultisquash in lieu of Ultimax

I wanted to get on the Philly team headed to Ultimax this weekend but I was a little late to get in touch with the people putting the team together and they were already pretty full. As a result of being around this weekend I ended up going to Ultisquash on Saturday. It was a great run. I definitely started off slow due to not getting enough sleep the night before. But by the end I had 2-3 games against TC where I was getting a few D's on him a game many of which were due to my having to adjust my position on him boxing me out so that I was "fronting" him and then out jumping him.

Any time I can out jump someone, especially someone like TC, when I'm still coming off of my knee injury I look at it as pretty exciting. He did extract some revenge by mashing my left thumb but conveniently having double jointed thumbs I can't really destroy my ligaments by having something like that happen.

Total Workout: 2 hours of Ultisquash

(217)

Long week

In a word this week is suck. The compressed week last week coupled with a lot of fairly nutty pressure and tasks at work has made it nearly impossible to get the the gym so far this week. Luckily tonight I had some free time. So after spending 2 hours or so talking Pike at a bar with someone I was feeling pretty frisky so I headed over to the local affiliate of Sweat (which is 3 blocks from my house vs. the one that's 3 blocks from my work). I was fairly scatterbrained from the long week and the workout was scatterbrained as well but still good.

Total Workout:

Jog .25 miles to the gym, jog another .75 miles on the treadmill at 8.5 speed.

Stretch

Get distracted by Eagles/Sixers/something cheerleaders practicing in the studio. Literally there were 30 of them.

3 x 10 dips
6 pull ups (I was reminding myself why it was I can't do these but I did as many as I could without sacrificing my ability to workout over the rest of the week).
2 x 15 Russian Twists
1 x 10 Russian Twist with 10 lbs plate
Wander around gym to scope it out as its my first time there.
Watch cheerleaders
15 med ball pushups
20 minutes biking. Amounts to 6 miles. Avg. speed 19 mph.

Then I came home and made myself some whole wheat pasta to try and get an energy bump for the rest of the week. My diet changes have actually been as helpful if not more helpful than all the working out. Maybe at some point I'll write a post about that. But my diet regimen has actually helped me go from the 219 I was right after Thanksgiving to what I am now with minimal exercise and actually getting really crappy sleep and messing with my body's metabolism.

When you get me talking about Pike like I was this evening you get me all kinds of fired up. I hope you all feel the same way.

(216.5)

The Huddle on Endzone O

There are some good articles (and some bad ones too) on how to score goals in end zone offense on http://www.the-huddle.org this week.

Two articles that I particularly liked:

Nick Handler’s: Exploiting Defensive Adjustments
Ben Wiggin’s: Scoring without Breaking the Mark

Two recurrent themes:

1. No matter what you do, be decisive in your cutting.
2. Your positioning before you even start your cut may be the difference between success and failure.

I also liked this quote from Steve Sullivan’s article (though not necessarily his punctuation):

“Really, long points are earned at practice and at the track, well before the specific moment arrives on a Sunday afternoon.”

And this one from Ben Wiggins:

“Offensively, you want to score. That means making most of your plays easy, and making up for your mistakes with talent or practice.”

Monday Monday

(can't trust that day)

8x
40 yard hill sprint
5 medball slams
40 yard slow backward walk down hill

3x
8 balance pushups*
4 pullups
10 clap pushups
10 dips

*- balance pushups = hands on wobble board with medball balanced on upper back (like a soccer ball caught behind the head). these are not easy.

(167)

J's WoW: Blackjack Circuit

Blackjack Circuit (modified CWoD):

3 rounds for time of:
21 x V-Ups
21 x Kettlebell Swings @ 25lbs
21 x Push-ups
10 x Rope-grip Pull-ups
21 x Box Jumps
21 x Back Extensions
21/leg x Lunges
Post time to comments if you're feeling competitive.